Loud Music is a $40 Fine

I haven’t written anything about Obama’s birth certificate controversy because I didn’t really have anything to say.

But on Monday the Supreme Court declined to hear one case that’s was brought to force Obama to show his birth certificate.

There are some ersatz conservative bloggers and writers who are ridiculing anyone who thinks that Obama should show proof that he’s eligible to be the President. They liken them to “troofers”, their name for folks who think 9/11 was an inside job.

While the folks who brought suit against Obama in order to get him to do a simple thing like show his real birth certificate may in fact be nuts, that doesn’t mean there isn’t some validity to their claim.

I read one person who said that it really shouldn’t matter if Obama was Constitutionally eligible to be President; if it turns out he wasn’t, then that would disenfranchise all those folks who voted for him.

Huh?

If we continue to let Constitutional principles slide, pretty soon we’re going to be in a world of trouble.

One thing that troubles me about this whole deal is where were these folks two years ago when Obama declared his candidacy? Why not go through all this ordeal then?

But the other thing that troubles me is that it should be a simple matter for Obama to either show his original birth certificate or explain why the one he’s provided isn’t the original one (was it destroyed in a fire?). It’s kind of like the fellow walking down the street and sees a policeman coming towards him, and the fellow starts running away. There’s a natural tenancy to assume someone is guilty of something because of that. Same is true with the birth certificate. The fact that he’s not being forthcoming with any kind of explanation about it would, to any reasonable person, indicate that there’s something fishy about it.

So, call me nuts if you want. Much like it’s reasonable to expect people who vote in elections to be United States citizens, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a candidate to actually meet the requirements of the office he’s running for. This controversy could be erased in five minutes if Obama wanted it to be. The longer he lets it go, the more the true crazies are going to go nuts about it.

John Stuart Mill was right when talking about the tyranny that can happen in democracies.

In his “On Liberty” he states “Society can and does execute its own mandates; and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.”

He’s talking about the so-called “tyranny of the majority”, but as it happens, in today’s America, it’s the minority that is more tyrannical.

How else can you explain things like folks losing their jobs for the use of one simple word? Sure, it’s a word that’s not polite to use, but we still have the First Amendment. Or how do you explain things like someone moving next to an interstate, then lobbying (successfully) to get the speed limit on that section of highway reduced to lower the sound? Or moving next to a speedway that’s been there 50 years, and trying to get it demolished because of the noise and “low property values”?

The minorities in this country seem to think that they’re owed something by the majority because somehow they’ve been victimized just by being in the minority. The only thing the minority (any minority group, not just the typical ones) is owed by the majority is to not suppress the minority’s rights. Yet time after time the minority groups take advantage of this, and we end up with the majority suppressing their own rights so as to feel better about themselves.

Right now there are two more prominent examples of minorities trying to overturn the will of the majority, even though no rights are involved. The first is California’s Proposition 8, which basically affirms that people of the same sex can’t get married. The people of California overwhelmingly approved this measure, but the losers in this case are not going away quietly. They’ve rioted, they’ve protested, they’ve done just about everything they can short of a violent takeover of the government (and who knows, that could be next). The people spoke, and affirmed thousands of years of tradition. Gay folks still have the privilege of getting married just like everyone else has; but not to a person of the same sex.

The other example of a minority trampling on the desires of the majority is the current Senate race in Minnesota. Erstwhile comedian Al Franken is still losing, and indications are that if he’s not declared the winner of the election, they plan on taking the issue to the US Senate to decide who the senator from Minnesota will be. This would be a terrible mistake, and would effectively disenfranchise not only supporters of Norm Coleman but of Franken as well.

it may sound like I’m trying to justify the ruling majority’s “rights” to do whatever they want to the minority. That’s not the case. Sadly, in the United States, we do have a few examples of that (e.g. slavery, voting rights) but I think we eventually get it right. But a past transgression by the ruling majority doesn’t give the folks who happen to be in the minority at the time the right to ask for reparations, other than gaining any rights they may not have had.

For example, no one alive today has been a slave (in the United States at least). Yet there are people who think that all “African” Americans should be given something because of the history of slavery in this country. In other words, the minority wants to punish the majority for something with which the majority had nothing to do.

Two wrongs have never made a right, and that couldn’t be more true in this case.

The majority has to be ever diligent in regards to imposing its will on the minority. When and if the majority errs in this, their only obligation should be to reverse that; the minority shouldn’t err in imposing its will on the majority.

Today is the “anniversary” of John Lennon’s murder. I can’t believe it’s been almost 30 years since he was shot down in cold blood outside his apartment building in New York.

I guess you’d have to say that Lennon was my “favorite” Beatle. I tended to like his solo songs more than the others. And as I got to know the Beatles’ catalog a little better, it turned out that I liked his Beatles songs better too. Of course I’m talking about the singles. There were some of his solo songs on his LP’s that were really just awful (and don’t get me started on Yoko’s “singing”).

Back in those days I really wasn’t aware of the politics of the musicians I followed. I figured if they wrote and performed a good song, then it was a good song and that’s all I needed to know. But today I’m more “politically” aware. I’d have to say that I’d have a hard time today being a John Lennon fan, assuming he was as politically active as he was in the early 70’s (and I understand that he had gone or was going to some left-wing political event near the time of his death). His political views do seem a little naive and I think he was duped into supporting some of the causes he was involved in.

I remember where I was when I heard the news that he’d been murdered. I was in the control room of a recording studio helping to engineer a session when the owner called down and told us. Needless to say, we were stunned. And the fact that we were in a studio kind of made it have a little more impact.

Imagine what songs a nearly 70 year old Lennon would be writing and singing these days…

I sure wish I had written this. Z. Dwight Billingsly outlines that generally after we get a weak Democrat president, we go on to elect a strong Republican.

It’s an interesting read. And you can tell from the comments by the liberals that he’s struck a nerve (they resort to the only argument they have, which is name calling).

It’s been said before that the poor and homeless in America have a better standard of living than the poor and homeless in other countries. How you can be poor and still have two or three TVs, cell phones, and computers beats me.

Now the homeless (who used to be called bums in another era) are taking it to a “whole ‘nother level”. Here’s a picture of a homeless guy with the obligatory cardboard sign begging for money. The kicker here is that he’s listed his email address and is asking for donations via PayPal.

While he can get computer access free from a public library, you have to have a checking account in order to get funds from PayPal.

There’s a good chance that this is a hoax. But if it’s not it says a lot about our society; it must be working or he wouldn’t be doing it.

Anyway, my point is that even the “homeless” in our country have a better standard of living than the homeless in other countries.

Bobby Hamilton Racing is no more. The team, run by Hamilton’s widow, closed up shop last week.

I guess the reason was lack of sponsorship. Without Hamilton running the operation, I’d suspect that sponsors weren’t exactly breaking the doors down.

One also has to wonder about the management. You had to know something was up with the organization when Bobby Hamilton, Jr. washed his hands of the operation.

I remember when the Truck Series came to Nashville Speedway USA for the first time in 1996. It was when they still had “half times” during the races, where they would stop the race in the middle so teams could do unhurried pit stops. It also meant that teams didn’t have to spend a ton of money on pit crews.

Bobby Hamilton was there with a truck for that first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at the Fairgrounds. He wasn’t driving it; he left that up to his Nashville Late Model driver Casey Atwood. His pit crew consisted of himself and maybe two other people. They didn’t have a pit box, just a small tool box. Unfortunately, Atwood got caught up on a wreck early and exited after 5 laps. But still, it was pretty incredible being there at the beginning of what would become Bobby Hamilton Racing.

Bobby Hamilton was always helping local racers. He pretty much gave Casey Atwood his start at Nashville. He even loaned a car to Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in a Late Model race one year at Nashville. Earnhardt’s car was destroyed in a fire during practice, and Hamilton let him use one of Atwood’s backup cars.

It’s a shame that his race team couldn’t be saved, but I guess it’s better this way than trying to run a team that’s nothing but an also-ran.

I really wish Fred Thompson had won the Republican nomination. I think if he had, we’d be talking about President Elect Thompson instead of the guy we ended up with.

Fred has a way of taking the complexity out of things. Here, he explains how the government plans on fixing the economy:

Could you imagine a Thompson/Palin ticket?

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving.

In a bi-partisan effort to help our soon-to-be President Elect, I have an idea as to where he can start with his wealth redistribution.

Oprah Winfrey has a net worth of $2,700,000,000. George Soros has a net worth of $9,000,000,000. Warren Buffet is worth $62,000,000,000. And while he doesn’t seem to be a flaming Democrat, Bill Gates gave money this year to Nancy Pelosi and, of all people, Ted Stevens. So lets add his $58,000,000,000 to the mix. Google founder Sergey Brin is worth over $18,000,000,000.

We’re up to almost one hundred fifty billion dollars with just five Democrats. I’m sure we could find enough Democrats with a net worth over a billion dollars to add to the mix.

Now I realize that the stock market has taken its worst post-presidential-election dive ever, and you could probably adjust those net worths down by 40% or so. But still, we’re still at $80,000,000,000 or so.

So if there are two hundred million taxpayers in the country, then we could each get a check for $400 if Obama just keeps this one promise of spreading the wealth around.

All of a sudden, I like it!

The Vatican has “forgiven” John Lennon for a remark he made about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus.

What?

That makes no sense. There’s nothing to forgive. He wasn’t bragging, just making an observation. If you think about it, it was an observation that condemned organized religion. In other words “Why are we more popular than Jesus? If the churches were doing their jobs, they wouldn’t have anything to worry about.”

Lennon may have done a lot that needs forgiveness (e.g. hanging out with domestic terrorists), but making an observation about the church isn’t one of them.